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Locarno and the Locarno Spring- Artmis Rahbar
Gustav Stresemann, leader of the German Peoples Party and German Foreign Minister, was interested in finding immediate recovery from Germany's humiliation in 1918, and was willing to accept the terms Treaty of Versailles after having them changed by international consent. Though his policies were found unappealing to nationalists, they were what got Germany accepted diplomatically once more. Following the Ruhr Crisis of 1923 and the Dawes Plan of 1924, Stresemann, in hopes of gaining alterations on Germany's border with Poland through revisions being placed on the Versailles Treaty, proposed a security pact to both Britain and France in 1925. These visions took until September 1925 in Locarno, Italy, where a meeting between Britain, France, Italy, and Belgium was held, later resulting to a formal signing of a new treaty in London, on December 1925. The terms of this treaty were as follows: Belgium, France and Germany were to accept the western borders of Germany, including the demilitarized are in the Rhineland, as first proposed in the Treaty of Versailles. The role of guarantors, which were people who took responsibility of supervising and taking blame for the mishap of others debts, were placed on Britain and Italy for the Franco-German-Belgian borders in the west. If breaches of this were attempted by either France, Germany or Belgium, Britain and Italy were to intervene these 'alleged' breaches being mentioned to the League of Nations. Germany was to sign arbitration treaties with Poland and Czechoslovakia, yet there were no designated guarantors for the Eastern parts involved in the Locarno Treaties. This meant none of the western powers were obliged to intervene if the eastern settlement had been violated, however, in order to reassure Czechoslovakia and Poland, France chose to individually renew its treaties with them after the Locarno Conference. The last term of the Locarno Treaties was that Germany was to join the League of Nations, which it did, with a permanent seat on the Council in September 1926. Results of the Locarno were both good and bad. The bad being the Anglo-French friction caused by the fact that the treaty had no specifications on its means of a 'flagrant' breach, and Britain being opposed to giving any full commitment of providing the French with military support in the event of a German attack. The good being the promised period of international co-operation due to the evacuation of the Rhineland by the Allies in 1926, and the ending of the Allied Control Commission in 1927. Germany was also now treated as an equal, unlike being referred to as the 'criminal' nation as they were in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. In 1926, in the Treaty of Berlin, Gustav Stresemann signed a treaty with the USSR, in order to ensure their co-operation in following the agreements of the West at Locarno. Both promised to remain neutral in the event of either being attacked by a third power. Finally, in 1926, three foreign ministers; Gustav Stresemann, Aristide Briand, and Austen Chamberlain were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Locarno is in Canton Ticino, Switzerland and NOT in Italy.